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'CREEPS' ON PARADE

Lakeview, Ore.

* Wonderful to read David Corn on the return of all the creeps from contra ["Iran/Contra Rehab," March 11]. As a combat veteran, I always felt North's and Poindexter's convictions should have led to firing squads, not leadership positions and millionaire status. We can also add ol' Jimmie the Geek Watt to the list of convicted felons who walked courtesy of Reagan/Bush court appointments. And why do some worry about Bill's sexcapades, when Bush and Cheney both got Layed? DOUG TROUTMAN

'AN EXuLTATION'

Rosemount, Minn.

* An addition to Christopher Hitchens's point about the use of the word "niggers" in Robert Lowell's poem, "For the Union Dead" ["Minority Report," March 4]: It was, in fact, a reference to a message--originally intended as an insult to the family of Robert Gould Shaw--from a Confederate: "We buried him with his niggers!"

The Shaw family turned it into an exultation, saying: "What finer bodyguard could he have had?" Robert Shaw's sister Josephine married Charles Russell Lowell, an ancestor of the poet, so this bit of Civil War lore was part of his family history. JAMES F. PENCE

CHALLENGING THE BEAST

Seattle

* Marc Cooper's report from Porto Alegre ["From Protest to Politics," March 11] was inspiring and included some hints about the state of the US portion of the anti-corporate globalization movement. As an activist from the marine division of the ILWU here in Seattle, I was upset to read, "The post-9/11 labor movement doesn't want its rank and file to see its leaders in street demonstrations that turn violent." Now, don't get me wrong--I'm not condoning violence as a tactic; however, there is more to the story. Our union not only shut down the docks on the West Coast during the WTO meeting here in Seattle, a group of 200 of our members and elected leaders walked through the marshals and bolstered the Direct Action folks. We were not led by any NGOs or top AFL-CIO leaders. We took the initiative and did the right thing. We are fortunate to belong to one of the few remaining US rank-and-file-run unions with a heritage of militancy and direct action. The vast majority of unions are top-down business unions whose leaders are deathly afraid of their members thinking or acting on their own.

By the way, no one from the ILWU made it to sunny Brazil. But three of us flew back to the "bellybutton of the belly of the beast," New York, for the WEF street protest. We participated in a peaceful, fun, vibrant street protest of 12,000 to 15,000. Yes, there were more NGO superstars in Porto Alegre, but I think history will show that it was more important to brave the weather and 4,000 NYC cops to challenge the beast. JEFF ENGELS, IBU-ILWU

RESIST LOCALLY--AND NONVIOLENTLY

Cheverly, Md.

* David Cortright's "The Power of Nonviolence" [Feb. 18], combined with The Nation's call to oppose globalism locally, points us toward more than nonviolent demonstrations and more than pressure on Congress.

Those sitting at forbidden lunch counters in the 1960s were not different from Seattle vandals just by being nonviolent. They were also clearly demonstrating what their message was: They wanted to be able to sit at those counters. We need boycotts of big-box stores with human chains around them, human walls against bulldozers, demonstrations at factories proposing to move overseas, campaigns in the street to take money out of big banks and put it in local ones, student walkouts of schools targeted for privatization, local sandwich sales in front of McDonald's. We need to think globally and practice nonviolent resistance locally. DAVID SWANSON

Seattle

* David Cortright is correct in arguing that "a 95 percent commitment to nonviolence is not enough" in the movement against corporate globalization. As long as protests are planned around such events as the WTO meetings in Seattle, it is likely that protesters who refuse nonviolence will show up. …